


One

by yxuraffectionatelaurens



Series: Write Your Name Across My Heart [2]
Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cant have a jlau fic without, Depression, F/M, He Struggles, John is so gay?, M/M, Martha Manning Deserved Better (TM), Period-Typical Homophobia, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Self-Hatred, my boi, tfw you decide to hate someone and it doesn't work out for you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 09:46:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8281453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yxuraffectionatelaurens/pseuds/yxuraffectionatelaurens
Summary: John, his whole life, has only ever had one soulmate.





	

There were three things John Laurens knew about Alexander Hamilton.

First, that he had the nicest handwriting John had ever seen.

Second, that he was going to outlive John.

Third, that John hated him.

John didn’t know much else besides that.

He was young, sitting in front of his mother’s knees as she ran a brush through his tangled wispy blonde hair. John looked at his hands in his lap, picking at dirt under his fingernails, giggling softly as he listened to his mother humming. The slaves could’ve done it, John had watched the house servants attend to both Henry and Eleanor countless times, but she’d pulled him before her and sat him down, combing through the tangles and smiling. 

John tried to sit as still as possible - he knew it was important to be proper, it had been emphasized many times by his father - and watched Martha read. She was so brilliant for her age, Eleanor always said it, it was easy to see. John wondered if he was brilliant, too. 

A giggle edging his voice, John mumbled the name over and over again, the one Eleanor had read to him with a glazed over sincerity. Henry and Eleanor had been elated when their son arrived, paid little heed to the tiny script on his chest, too unintelligible at such a small size. When John was old enough that the signature over his heart could be read, a flourishing _Alexander Hamilton_ , concern had arisen.

It was not unusual for a man to bear the name of his best friend or brother. But considering it was his only mark, and where it was… they didn’t speak of it. There was always the chance.

Young John knew better, yet still, he couldn't help mumbling the name as he drummed his fingers across his ankle. “Alexander, Alexander, Alexander.”

Eleanor’s fingers stiffened in his hair, and John could not understand why the face he dreamed of, a best friend, a brother, caused it. The sunlight had been streaming through the parlor window, but John felt like the sun had gone down early when his parents drew him into a room unexpectedly and, for the first time in his life, he saw them frightened.

Though he was usually obedient, John had forgotten what Henry had told him several times - talking about soulmates with people whose names were not present on one’s skin was satirical, if not blasphemy. John didn't know what those words meant, just that it wasn't what a good, God-fearing Christian did, what they told him. His parent’s faces, their tempers, were enough to convince him that whatever they were saying, though most of it went over his head, he'd been wrong. The faces he'd imagined when he thought of Alexander, whoever he was, were replaced by a feeling of illness that sat in his stomach, prodding at him every now and then, making him ask, _what did I do wrong?_

They didn't speak of it with his siblings either, thankfully, so John knew he was not a rare case. But he knew Martha had them, two male names, because she had shown him, one around her wrist, one on the inside of her elbow. He didn't know what decorated the skin of his other siblings. 

There were many babies born to Eleanor who didn’t survive. Several of them bore names at their births, several didn’t. Every time, his mother grew a little sadder, the house grew a little heavier, the burden on John’s shoulders began to ache a bit more.

At first, he longed for Alexander, wishing the faceless friend would come to his aide, prove that John hadn’t messed up the process of having a soulmate. Not that he had much say in whose name shown across his skin. To put a face to a name, to have a supportive shoulder to lean on, that was all he asked.

The longing festered in malnourished silence, twisting into something deeper, something rooted in anger. Every time he saw the name, his hands curled into fists, his head began to pang with disgust, he wanted to scratch it off his skin with the his fingernails, as if it were dried blood he could just pick away to leave the skin clean and ordinary underneath it.

But the name wasn't a wound from a leftover fight. It was not something in his power to remove. There was nothing to smudge his imperfection with, no way to wash the guilt from his skin. 

John was a teenager, sliding off the back of one of his horses, dappled, gray, reins slack in his hands. His breeches and shirt clung to his body with sweat, dirty blonde hairs slipping free of his queue, and the breeze made a South Carolina dawn look somehow more beautiful than the sunsets. John’s horse shuddered, and he watched her graze as he breathed in and felt no air in his lungs.

The Carolinas were always thick as syrup during the summer, heat heavy like an invisible cloud choking him, and John untied his cravat, uncomfortably warm. 

Eleanor asked him once why he liked riding so much. John had paused, halfway through his dinner, and every time he exhaled, he wished he could breathe everything all out together. Even more so, every time he inhaled, it was like he could feel the name across his chest constricting his lungs for him.

He had no explanation, only the feeling that he was _good at riding. Animals never asked why his soulmate - over his damn heart, of all places - was a man, and John never had to explain. For all his horses knew, he was a good rider, he took care of them, he was _normal_. _

John dropped his cravat in the grass, stifled the lump in his throat that threatened to tear at his dignity. He was already weak enough, already a disgrace, a disappointment enough. Crying would only make him feel worse, especially when there was no reason. 

Where was Alexander? His supposed soulmate, the only one decorating his skin, whose existence itched under his skin? Did he sit somewhere, alone, wondering the same things that John did as he sat in the grass and watched the sun bleed into the sky? 

Although he had resolved to hate him, some small part of John hoped that Alexander wasn't battling with himself the same way John was. Maybe he would be lucky enough to be one who was matched incompatibly, whose soulmate’s names were one sided. Perhaps Alexander’s skin wore the name of another, perhaps his skin shone blank. 

That part of John hoped that was the case. If he was Alexander, he’d be disappointed to have a soulmate like John. 

When John’s mother died, something grew cold in Henry. He kept himself distant from people, emotionally closed off when his children tried to talk to him, and John watched the way it felt to lose a soulmate. He barely saw the _Eleanor Ball_ curled around his father’s wrist, but when he did, the skin was hardened and scarred, only brittle remains of a beautiful signature. 

John was a young man, and Francis had a girl’s name etched into his collarbone. 

If it made him angry, John said nothing about it. Nipping at his skin, leaving bruises over the black marks, he ignored the words. 

“ _Alexander_ ,” Francis whispered, and John recoiled a little from his touch. He was sprawled across the bed, fingers tapping John’s chest, hair feather soft under him. “ _Alexander Hamilton._ ”

John had always been overly conscious over the name inscribed on his chest, a flowing hand, so familiar to him that he could write it in his sleep. He had touched it so many times, his fingers tracing the letters, wondering. 

"You know as much as I,” John replied quietly, lying back. 

"So your soulmate is a man as well as your bedmate,” Francis teased, and his fingers traced the loops of the signature. 

John had no response, simply gathering Francis into his arms. A candle flickered on the bedside, illuminating the lines of Francis’s skin, highlighting the impropriety of the situation. Everything John wanted, but could not have. His dear Francis, their soulmates mismatching, their eyes meeting as they touched. John knew they weren't destined to be together until the end of his days - that was something Alexander, as much as he despised him, would be tasked with, seeing as he'd been born with it. There were no years to spend missing him, if that was even possible. 

“I hate him,” John informed him. Francis laughed, lips soft and searching. His eyes were more clouded than the soft Swiss snow on the windowsill, and John pulled a quilt around them, hoping to hide the ink swirls across his chest. 

“So he's that kind of soulmate.” Francis kissed against his neck, moving to hover over him, and John felt himself relax against Francis. The soft hairs dangling against his chin, pale lips chapped. “Will you keep my name upon your lips when _Alexander_ is the one pressed against you?” 

John winced at the name, shoving Francis off him. He thought that laugh was more akin to honey than any he’d heard before. “Kinloch, I’ve changed my mind. Now it is you I hate.” 

"I suspect when it comes down to it, you will not truly shove him away in such a fashion,” Francis speculates, resting his chin on John’s chest. “You won’t make a forsaken lover out of him.” 

"Perhaps he will be less enamored with drama and the _travesty_ of simple worries.” John enriched his voice with sarcasm, giving Francis a good-natured shove. 

The only one who ever saw it that didn't ask was Martha. The name brought chills across his skin, made him turn away, even when it belonged to a woman who was not his Martha. 

Martha had ignored it, he'd waited till the sun rose over London and she was sleeping with her back turned to leave. Unable to find rest, wandering the streets of London with a cloak drawn around his frame. He could barely enjoy the cool weather with his fingers fidgeting against his sides, feeling his head pounding against his temple. 

John wondered what his father, what his mother, would say if they knew what he'd done. What a sinner he'd become. Taken a young woman's virginity with his head aching so horribly, longing for a deep laugh and calloused hands and Francis’s smile, settling instead for Martha’s longing for closeness. 

Part of him knew he should not have taken advantage of her desire to know him. Part of him believed she should not have taken advantage of his heart, still sore and lonely from Francis breaking things off with him. 

All of him knew he was unworthy of Martha’s affection. She was good-hearted, deserved a loving, good man to keep up with her passionate heart and care for her in the way John’s friendship couldn't. He and Martha had been friends for so long, pushing each other through depressive episodes, discussing soulmates without having to admit what the names read, even if there were things John could never tell her. He guessed he'd ruined that, too. He didn't deserve her. 

John didn't believe he deserved anything.

Martha’s eyes had lit up the first time they met at the mention of his last name, and he knew now that the script along her upper arm read _Frances Laurens_. He was nowhere to be found, but neither was she across his skin. 

That didn't matter, though, because it wasn't hard to connect the dots with her soulmate and know what the retribution for their actions would be. He figured she'd learned just as much about him, if the name across his chest meant anything. 

So, he married her, when his worries became reality. Ignored the way his skin felt too tight when he thought about that night. He continued to hate Alexander, to the point where when Martha finally asked about him, he proclaimed that he believed he was being mocked by whatever divinity placed it there. 

"You are too cold to a man you've yet to meet,” She told him, arms crossed across her chest above her stomach, swollen with their child. “Would you count yourself among those who scorn the very notion of love marks simply because you're unhappy with the hand you've been dealt?” 

John’s eyes were locked on himself in the mirror, burning holes where the fabric hid the pretentious swirl of an A. “Mattie, you wear the name of our child. I wear the name of a man, and sodomy is not only a sin but a crime, and---” 

"And we’re married,” Martha cut in, and her voice was icy silent. Something resigned rested in her gaze, quietly pained in the same way John was - trapped. He ignored the way she frowned at his mention of sodomy, ignored the way she reached for his hand, instead resting her palm on his shoulder. “I know you did not marry me out of love, Jack, but-” 

They were interrupting each other in an endless dance. John didn't want to hurt her, he just wanted her to understand, and she wanted the same - if they stepped on each other’s toes frequently while trying to learn how to circumnavigate each other, it was unintentional. 

“I'm sorry,” He blurted, watching her sigh into the top of his hair, dark blond strands brushing against her nose. “You deserve more than this, more than me. I should not have been so careless, we should have been more sensible, I should've… been better. A marriage of love was all that you deserved, not rushing into matrimony to preserve you when you do not love me.” 

"But I do.” Her fingers curled in his hair. John watched her reflection in the mirror, tried to unclench his stomach. “I want to, at least. Whatever you've done in your past, I assume from your words you have done things, I forgive you, if you leave them there. You defended my honor, and I will protect yours. He may only be a friend, after all,” She mumbled, and John could hear how eager her voice was. Anxious to understand, not as if he could explain - if he tried to tell her the way his stomach knotted when she suggested it, he knew her eyes would cloud and she would ask what she'd done wrong. “Come back to bed. Allow, if you will, me to be what I can for you. Please.” 

John looked at himself in the mirror, where the strings of his shirt fell limply to leave the cloth loose around his neck. He could see the tips of the curls of ink on the _l_ and _d_ of Alexander. 

He allowed Martha to lead him back to bed, and shut off every voice in his head. When he left for America, he told her that he wasn't sure when he'd be back, that he'd come back to her and the baby - Frances, if the name on her arm meant anything - once he survived the war. 

John didn't really plan on surviving the war. 

Henry congratulated him on the marriage, said nothing about Jemmy, said nothing about anything at all. He made polite conversation about Washington, talked about how John would enjoy being his aide, didn't comment on the baby. 

John thought maybe Henry would never say anything of substance to him ever again. 

He had heard people talk about meeting their soulmates before - some never felt any shift in the atmosphere, barely realized there was anything even happening. But some people felt like their lives were reaching a turning point, a point of no return, a sense that everything had been meant to reach this moment. 

In the spring of 1777, John Laurens entered General Washington’s camp, and felt the strange curl of anxiety in his stomach that made him wonder if that was what people meant when they said _you'll know when you meet them before they even say their name._

He felt anxiety linger as he met General Washington, as he was introduced to Marquis de Lafayette, as he was lead to his tent and allowed to unpack his things. He'd had nothing but good things to say about the other aides, except for the fact that they were loud sometimes. 

John looked at his fingertips as he wrote, quill scratching out a letter to his father slowly, sleeves dragging across the parchment a little irritatingly. 

"Alexander Hamilton, if you wished to know. Since we are to room together, I thought you may be interested in my name, at least. Unless you would like to call me something else.” 

John’s stomach dropped into his knees - he had barely heard him enter. Slipping the quill back into the inkwell, he watched a bead of wax drip down the candle and stood slowly. Old rage, familiar rage, burned in his stomach… and then he turned around. 

John blushed and rubbed the back of his neck, dismantled, because he every ounce of hatred he'd held for the man who's name John had worn since birth was dissolving alalrmingly fast. 

"I have only heard your name a hundred times today, though I’m certain you will not recognize mine. Laurens, John Laurens,” John said cooly, offering a hand and a tentative smile. He didn't know why he'd added the first part, because he had never heard someone say that name aloud since Martha had finally asked who Alexander was. 

His mouth was running faster than his mind, and he felt like he was screaming within the confines of his head. 

"Only in Washington’s endless correspondence to congress,” Alexander joked, and he stretched out on the bed - John nearly winced when he realized they had to share it. He hated to admit how beautiful Hamilton was, especially when he recognized that Alexander was well aware, dark red hair curling down his back, piercing blue eyes that watched his every move. “I pray you have twice the sensibility and half the arrogance of those in mind.” 

Congress, meaning John’s father. Meaning Henry Laurens. John almost laughed, wondering if Hamilton could know the irony of the statement, of judging the sensibility of the man who had told his son not to speak of his very name showing up as a soulmate mark. 

But for all the panic running rampant in John’s head, Hamilton seemed cool and composed. There was nothing to suggest that he, too, wore _John Laurens_ like an accessory. 

Hamilton’s accent was veiled, but his voice was lovely to John. He hated the way it had taken only minutes for Alexander to grow on him. “Correspondence almost as endless as the praises you were given in the letter of recommendation.” 

"You read my recommendation letter?” John asked, turning his back so he could undress for bed. He hoped Hamilton couldn't see him from that angle, couldn't see his own signature so blatantly obvious. 

"That is the role of an aide-de-camp, is it not? To dig through a general’s writings and pass along those worthy of reading? Of which there are few, I assure you.” The ribbon dropped from Alexander’s hair, and John wondered why God had decided to torture him. 

He knew the game of flirtatious banter, though. He had learned it with Frances, understood where the limits lay, decided to test the waters. “Certainly, pleasing a man like you is an arduous task.” 

Alexander’s eyebrow raised, giving John a look so analytical that it somehow managed to take him apart, sliding together all the pieces John had thought he'd be so adamant not to arrange. 

John knew he was doomed long before they were even friends, long before he felt the self loathing in his chest that was partially tangled with his soulmate begin to unravel, long before Alexander became Alex and long before he felt Alex’s lips crash against his, months later, for the first time. 

He figured maybe soulmates were not quite so ridiculous after all. 


End file.
